4-10 THE BANK OF A STREAM. 



picture taken from the interesting volume of Mr. Bates, and drawn 

 on the bank of a forest stream flowing into the Murncupe. " A glo- 

 rious vegetation," he says, " piled up to an immense height, clothes 

 the banks of the creek, which traverses a broad tract of semi-culti- 

 vated ground, and the varied masses of greenery are lighted up with 

 the sunny glow. Open palm- thatched huts peep forth at intervals 

 from amidst groves of banana, mango, cotton, and papaw trees and 

 palms. Both banks are masked by lofty walls of green drapery, here 

 and there a break occurring. The projecting boughs of the trees are 

 hung with natural garlands and festoons, and an endless variety of 

 creeping plants clothe the water frontage, some of which, especially 

 the Bignonias, are ornamented with large, gaily-coloured flowers. Art 

 could not have assorted together beautiful vegetable forms so har- 

 moniously as is here done by Nature. Palms, as usual, form a large 

 proportion of the lower trees ; some of them, however, shoot up their 

 slim stems to a height of sixty feet or more, and wave their branches 

 of nodding plumes between you and the sky. One kind of palm, the 

 Pashiuba (Iriartea Exorhiza), which grows here in greater abundance 

 than elsewhere, is especially attractive. It is not one of the tallest 

 kinds, for when full-grown its height is not more, perhaps, than forty 

 feet ; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets much 

 broader than in other species, so that they have not that feathery 

 appearance which those of some palms have, but still they possess 

 their own peculiar beauty." 



Probably there is no richer field on earth for the naturalist, the 

 poet, or the artist than the virgin forest ; 



" To mark the structure of a plant or tree, 

 And all fair things of earth, how fair they be ! " 



